How Does Employee Infusion Use of CRM Systems Drive Customer Satisfaction? Mechanism Differences between Face-to-Face and Virtual Channels

Liwei Chen, J.J. Po-An Hsieh, and Arun Rai, 'How does Intelligent System Empowerment Yield Payoff: Uncovering the Adaptive Mechanisms and the Contingency Role of Work Experience' Information Systems Research (A*), (Forthcoming)

MIS Quarterly (45:2), pp 719-754, 2021

66 Pages Posted: 19 Jan 2022

See all articles by Liwei Chen

Liwei Chen

University of Cincinnati - Department of Information Systems

JJ Po-An Hsieh

Georgia State University, Robinson College of Business, Computer Information Systems Department

Arun Rai

Georgia State University - J. Mack Robinson College of Business

Sean Xu

Tsinghua University - School of Economics & Management

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

To attain customer satisfaction, service firms invest significant resources to implement customer relationship management (CRM) systems to support internal customer service (CS) employeeswho provide service to external customers in both face-to-face and virtual channels. How CSemployees apply sophisticated CRM systems to interact with customers and how the mechanisms through which their CRM usage affects customer satisfaction vary across service channels and bear important implications. We approach these issues by investigating the concept of infusion use, defined as CS employees’ assessment of the extent to which they use a CRM system to its fullest potential to best support their work in the CRM-enabled service interaction context. Drawing on the IS success framework and expectation confirmation theory, we first formulate a baseline model that explains the direct and indirect mechanisms through which CS employees’infusion use of CRM systems leads to customers’ expectation confirmation, which in turn affects customers’ satisfaction. We then draw on the lenses of media richness and communication adaptation to theorize why these two mechanisms exert differential influence in face-to-face and virtual channels. We test the hypotheses by collecting multi-wave data from CS employees, customers, and firm archives of a Fortune 500 telecom service firm. We find that (1) CS employee infusion use can directly contribute to customer expectation confirmation andindirectly do so through CS employees’ satisfaction with the system (i.e., user satisfaction), and(2) the direct mechanism plays a more critical role in the face-to-face channel, whereas the indirect mechanism is more important in the virtual channel. Our findings inform managers of the avenues through which employees’ infusion use promotes CRM-enabled service success across face-to-face and virtual service channels.

Keywords: infusion use, post-adoptive use, CRM-enabled service success, multi-channel, face-to-face channel, virtual channels

Suggested Citation

Chen, Liwei and Hsieh, JJ Po-An and Rai, Arun and Xu, Sean, How Does Employee Infusion Use of CRM Systems Drive Customer Satisfaction? Mechanism Differences between Face-to-Face and Virtual Channels (Jun 1, 2021). Liwei Chen, J.J. Po-An Hsieh, and Arun Rai, 'How does Intelligent System Empowerment Yield Payoff: Uncovering the Adaptive Mechanisms and the Contingency Role of Work Experience' Information Systems Research (A*), (Forthcoming), MIS Quarterly (45:2), pp 719-754, 2021, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3936665

Liwei Chen

University of Cincinnati - Department of Information Systems ( email )

606 Carl H. Lindner Hall 2925 Campus Green Drive
PO Box 210211
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0211
United States

JJ Po-An Hsieh (Contact Author)

Georgia State University, Robinson College of Business, Computer Information Systems Department ( email )

Atlanta, GA 30302
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.jjhsieh.com

Arun Rai

Georgia State University - J. Mack Robinson College of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 4050
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
United States

Sean Xu

Tsinghua University - School of Economics & Management ( email )

Beijing, 100084
China

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